COCAINE SEIZURE MAY BE A RECORD

The Coast Guard seized a ship packed with at least 26,500 pounds of
cocaine, believed to be the largest maritime drug seizure on record, off
the coast of Mexico and towed the vessel into San Diego Bay yesterday, law
enforcement sources said.

Coast Guard officials would only confirm that a news conference is
scheduled for today to announce an important drug seizure. Navy officials
wouldn't comment on the seizure.

However, maritime law enforcement sources said the ship was stopped May 3
about 1,500 miles south of San Diego, and Coast Guard crew members began
searching the vessel. The drugs apparently had been hidden in secret
compartments because it took searchers several days to locate the
contraband, a source said. The search for more hidden compartments will
continue in San Diego.

The vessel first came under surveillance by a Customs Service jet on April
28, following information from the Joint Task Force Intelligence Center in
El Paso, Texas. Coast Guard aircraft tracked the vessel until the Coast
Guard cutter Active could stop and search it. The ship was manned by
Russian and Ukrainian crew members, the sources said. The name of the
vessel and its country of registry were unavailable yesterday.

The previous record cocaine seizure was the Nataly 1, stopped in 1995 with
24,325 pounds of drugs on board. Last week, a Coast Guard detachment aboard
the frigate George Philips recovered more than 1,600 pounds of cocaine
tossed from a high-speed, long-endurance boat, called a "go-fast." The boat
and smugglers escaped.

So far this year, the Coast Guard has seized 33,000 pounds of cocaine along
the Pacific coast and nearly 70,000 pounds overall. During the past two
years, the Eastern Pacific between Colombia and Canada has become a primary
route for maritime drug smugglers. In mid-February, the Coast Guard
recovered 3,128 pounds of cocaine in 46 bales floating in the Pacific 50
miles off of Acapulco, which authorities gave a street value of $31
million. Mexican officials stopped a speedboat nearby and confiscated an
additional 11 bales in that operation.

In the last two months of 2000, San Diego-based Coast Guard cutters seized
11,000 pounds of cocaine in two operations, both involving 40-foot
speedboats that outran them. The smugglers dumped bales of cocaine into the
ocean before speeding away.

The Active is a 210-foot medium-endurance cutter that has a crew of 62.